After playing Dark Souls for a while, I can honestly say that I enjoy the hell out of it. However, there are some aspects to the game that I wished that they added to the game.

Being able to pause: Probably my biggest complaint about the game is the inability to pause the game, even on offline mode. I mean who hasn't had to go use the restroom really bad while playing the game.

Maps: I feel that if they added maps to the game, much like how in Legend of Zelda: OOT, it would make the game easier, but at the same time add some sort of challenge. I mean there has been times where I felt lost in the game.

Difficulty Levels: I know. I know this game is meant to be hard, but damn don't I wish that there were difficulty levels. I mean I usually on the default difficulty so that I can get my feet wet a little bit and learn about what I should expect in the game.

Option to turn off invasion. I hate them. I am not in the mood to PVP. I just want to play the single player aspect of the game, without risking a damn invasion. I know I can just stay hallow or play offline, but if I do, I end up missing out on summons that I need for a boss battle.

Allow saving your game on your own terms. I don't want to have to replay the whole game because I accidentally killed a character that I wanted to talk to or who had an item that I wanted. At least let me save every once in a while.

But that's more of just of a convenience. I don't mind it so much.

As for what I'd really want, it's those things that you said. I hate PVP in most RPGs, and I just want to play co-op or alone. I don't want to play PVP, it's just not that fun.

Slash Dementia:Allow saving your game on your own terms. I don't want to have to replay the whole game because I accidentally killed a character that I wanted to talk to or who had an item that I wanted. At least let me save every once in a while.

But that's more of just of a convenience. I don't mind it so much.

As for what I'd really want, it's those things that you said. I hate PVP in most RPGs, and I just want to play co-op or alone. I don't want to play PVP, it's just not that fun.

They probably made it like that so your actions have some actual consequences. Being able to manual save would completely destroy that.

My biggest gripe is the tutorial or lack there of. I'm not sure it could have gotten more bare bones than that. I shouldn't have to read online guides for several hours to figure out some pretty basic stuff.

I'd also like to see more of the plot brought forward. I know it's part of the style to have a minimalist story that's open to lots of interpretation but I'd like some more motivation for why Tits McGee is giving me a vessel so I can help a bug eyed 'snake' thing ripped straight from an acid dream kill a dude in a kiln. I've seen the youtube videos on the lore and it's all pretty interesting but I'd like some more of that in the game itself.

Edit: I didn't phrase that well. Obviously the lore is all in the game but I'd like to see it in the foreground as opposed to in the flavor text for an item I may not even find. Hiding little snippets of information about certain things for players to stumble upon is a cool little reward; Having to sift through the flavor text on a hundred different items to get any sort of cohesive idea of what's going on in the world just seems silly.

Rylot:My biggest gripe is the tutorial or lack there of. I'm not sure it could have gotten more bare bones than that. I shouldn't have to read online guides for several hours to figure out some pretty basic stuff.

I'd also like to see more of the plot brought forward. I know it's part of the style to have a minimalist story that's open to lots of interpretation but I'd like some more motivation for why Tits McGee is giving me a vessel so I can help a bug eyed 'snake' thing ripped straight from an acid dream kill a dude in a kiln. I've seen the youtube videos on the lore and it's all pretty interesting but I'd like some more of that in the game itself.

That has been bugging me to. I would like to know who some of the bosses really are without having to read the item descriptions. I want to know the importance of Orinstein and Smough or hell who the hell Sif is.

I think for the things DS does, it's pretty much perfect and if From changed elements it would distract from the game as a whole. Like full tutorials, more NPCs, towns etc. Less is more goes the saying.

That includes no quicksaving/ save slots most importantly of all, it's pretty much at the core of the game, everbody would just abuse QS to hell and all of the sense of achievement would be lost, it could possibly break some of the pvp elements aswell.

I'm not a big PVPer but it could do with tightening up in that regard, better netplay, no lagstab or cheater BS

Jerry Pendleton:After playing Dark Souls for a while, I can honestly say that I enjoy the hell out of it. However, there are some aspects to the game that I wished that they added to the game.

Being able to pause: Probably my biggest complaint about the game is the inability to pause the game, even on offline mode. I mean who hasn't had to go use the restroom really bad while playing the game.

Maps: I feel that if they added maps to the game, much like how in Legend of Zelda: OOT, it would make the game easier, but at the same time add some sort of challenge. I mean there has been times where I felt lost in the game.

Difficulty Levels: I know. I know this game is meant to be hard, but damn don't I wish that there were difficulty levels. I mean I usually on the default difficulty so that I can get my feet wet a little bit and learn about what I should expect in the game.

Option to turn off invasion. I hate them. I am not in the mood to PVP. I just want to play the single player aspect of the game, without risking a damn invasion. I know I can just stay hallow or play offline, but if I do, I end up missing out on summons that I need for a boss battle.

Maps? Pause button? Turn off invasion? Difficulty levels? You did know what you were getting into when purchasing the game right? All four of those things would considerably change the game . Yes it would make it more accessible , but that isn't what they were going for at all . And that's why people love the game so much . It would no longer be dark souls but two worlds 2.

Slash Dementia:Allow saving your game on your own terms. I don't want to have to replay the whole game because I accidentally killed a character that I wanted to talk to or who had an item that I wanted. At least let me save every once in a while.

But that's more of just of a convenience. I don't mind it so much.

As for what I'd really want, it's those things that you said. I hate PVP in most RPGs, and I just want to play co-op or alone. I don't want to play PVP, it's just not that fun.

This i understand . But at the same time , every action has a consequence . What would stop people from saving before a battle and reloading when souls are lost? This one thing would KILL all difficulty and sense of accomplishment in the game . People could easily use this to cheat at the mechanics of the game . I'm not saying that's what you would do , but many people would .

Rylot:My biggest gripe is the tutorial or lack there of. I'm not sure it could have gotten more bare bones than that. I shouldn't have to read online guides for several hours to figure out some pretty basic stuff.

I'd also like to see more of the plot brought forward. I know it's part of the style to have a minimalist story that's open to lots of interpretation but I'd like some more motivation for why Tits McGee is giving me a vessel so I can help a bug eyed 'snake' thing ripped straight from an acid dream kill a dude in a kiln. I've seen the youtube videos on the lore and it's all pretty interesting but I'd like some more of that in the game itself.

Edit: I didn't phrase that well. Obviously the lore is all in the game but I'd like to see it in the foreground as opposed to in the flavor text for an item I may not even find. Hiding little snippets of information about certain things for players to stumble upon is a cool little reward; Having to sift through the flavor text on a hundred different items to get any sort of cohesive idea of what's going on in the world just seems silly.

There is a tutorial , it's the asylum . They show you everything you need to know at the begining of the game . The controlles and the buttons . Then the game rewards you for experimenting and trying stuff out . In no way is a walkthrough needed and in my opinion a walkthrough kills the experience , but that's just me . What did you learn online that wasn't explained and would have been in a tutorial?

OT: honestly the ONLY think i would change is the ending . I would have like to have had a proper ending cinematic like we had for the intro . Other than that , the game is perfect in my opinion

I generally only play in offline to avoid PvP as it generally drives me daft, but then again I'm not really into PvP in any game.Thus for me personally you could get rid of all that shite straight away and possibly give me more monsters to kill or areas to explore ... :)

More lore would be great. What bits I managed to figure out were really cool.But yeah, and what is the backstory of the firekeeper?

A more intuitive way to fight florintine.

Loved the difficulty and the lack of hand-holding actually wouldn't dilute that a bit.

Dark Souls doesn't NEED tutorials, saves, maps, or anything else that just coddles your head and coos "It's ok baby, you can totally suck ass, we'll beat the game for you."

It's not even entirely DIFFICULT, just challenging with a real sense of reward, victory, and accomplishment. When it reads "VICTORY ACHIEVED" at the end of every boss fight, it's a great feeling that is hard to find in today's regenerating health, casual difficulty market.

To change that overall tone of imminent death, exploration and experimentation would simply bring a gold nugget of a game into the shit hole that is the mainstream triple-A scene.

Aside from all of that, I would've like pvp to be more about fighting, not lagstabbing the other guy before he lagstabs you. I mean, I can do it just fine, but I feel bad when I shit all over some guy and I know on his screen it looks like utter bullshit.

Sorry, maps completely go against the spirit of the game. Maps betray too much, and take away from the observation of environment. The most fantastic thing about that game is how much of a comprehensive picture one develops through the play of a section. Maps take away the tension of "how much farther?!" and, "will I die if I jump here, or...?" not to mention the compulsive memorization of every little detail that takes one over while playing.

Sorry, maps, especially with annotation, would ruin the game.

sonofliber:the ability to change the controls, a frigging tutorial, and some plot would be nice (lime who are those bosses why do they want to kill me?)

After spending this entire weekend digging into the lore of this game, there is certainly a plot, and it's fucking badass. They don't feed it to you on a spoon is the only real conceit. Recommend searching Dark Souls Lore on YouTube and start to take it all in. The world and the story behind your purpose in this game is fucking amazing. You'll never look at Ceaseless Discharge the same way again, and will view killing him as the ultimate mercy, for one.

Also, tutorial-- there is one. It's called the Undead Asylum. Anything you need to know past that, you can figure out by doing a little reading. Sorry there's no giant red arrows screaming DO THIS AND GET THIS. Read a little. Talk to people. More than once. Check every corner. Talk to people again. Everything you need to know is in the game. Truly, it is.

One last thing on no save, no load. I have played so very few games with true, meaningful consequences. Dark/Demon's Souls are really the only two this generation that I know of with a permanent consequence mechanic. To see that go would be a real tragedy. A game like Skyrim could benefit GREATLY with a similar system. Makes things tense, gives decisions weight. Can't walk into anything lightly, and I think that's AMAZING.

If I were to change a single thing about the game, I'd tighten some things up a little. That's all. Tweak out some of the occasional control latency (I said roll, dammit! Oh, NOW you roll. Into the giant hammer. Thanks.) maybe tighten up some of the cheaper hitboxes that still nail you when you're clearly free of the attack and....that's about it.

I'm not a big PVPer but it could do with tightening up in that regard, better netplay, no lagstab or cheater BS

It's not necessarily cheating; on the other guy's screen it's a legitimate backstab, the latency makes it look like he teleports through your body. Try wearing lighter armor or robes when pvping, it'll help you out a lot.

Or just wear full Havel armor, sit in a corner, and Homing Crystal Soul Mass every thing that moves. >=D

fuzz:The only thing I'd improve is the Bed of Chaos. That fight is basically pot luck no matter how good you are. Even with a shield with great stability it'll just knock you into the ground.

Because the boss fight doesn't reset every time you die it sort of makes the fight a little trivial. The only thing that got me in that was I couldn't figure out how to get inside it. After a dozen attempts at leaping towards the root in the centre hole, and failing to land, I started circling around the thing, dying multiple times until I eventually threw my hands up and went to the wiki. Turns out, I was right at first, its just so fickle about the jump I started thinking I wasn't meant to go that way... a combination of obscurity and fickle jump timing made me 2nd guess my initially correct assumption.

So yeah, it could have been refined. The collapsing ground and the wide area attacks are fine, the actually structure of the boss fight is just weak though.

OP: The only thing I would ask for is less latency. PvP is a mixed bag at best, enemies back stabbing me while they are still towards my front gets tiresome quickly.

Also, maybe its just me, but all the Phantoms I faced in my first run were kitted out with gear I could only get well into the late game. Is there any kind of filter system in place to stop high level players with fat loot from invading players with starter sets? PvP just feels inaccessible at the start, almost off putting... I had a much better experience in Demons Souls. Its not awful, it just took FAR longer for me to get into and it was just frustrating every time I was invaded, because it was always so ludicrously balanced in the phantoms favour. There also seems to be fuck all blue phantoms at the early stages, making it ever harder to defend against early black phantom invasions.

It felt broken until I joined a covenant basically. Might just have been bad luck on my part.

1. Moar story. You're, like, a dude, and you're in a cell, then you get out of the cell and have to FIGHT ZOAMBIES AND SHIT. Why? Why are you there, what's going on in the background, who are all these people and why am I going on this silly quest that I just happen to do while I'm wandering around and shit?

2. Easier getting around. NO DARK SOULS I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO THE FIRST FUCKING AREA OF THE GAME STRAIGHT FROM BLOODY BLIGHTTOWN JUST TO GET THAT ONE ITEM I NEED -- ON FOOT! I hear there's an item that allows me to teleport later on, WHY NOT NOW? I DO NOT WANT TO WADDLE ABOUT WITH HALF HP TO FIND THAT ONE GUY WHO SELLS CURSE DISPELLING EQUIPMENT. Not that it's happened, but still.

3. Spellcasting that actually works as an alternative to combat. The melee is fun and all, but I didn't choose the Sorcerer class just so I could run around in black leather with a sword and shield! What is this limited use bullshit? Give me some cool protection spells that can keep my ass alive while I finish casting my Great Big Blue Spitball of Doom. How about Conjure Shield? Maybe a way to buff the shield that doesn't require doing it before the fight? Why would I even cast spells with a shield, anyway? You ever seen a mighty archmage cower behind his kite shield while trying to rain fire on his enemies? It's embarrassing. What's the point of the damage spells, anyway? They just deal laughable damage that I could easily and with way less hassle achieve by hitting my enemy ONCE with a SWORD. And since every enemy so far is dodge/block + riposte, I see no freakin' reason to bother with something that needs precious seconds to cast and doesn't even 1shot them. Hey, here's an idea: PUT STAFF INTO GAME. Then maybe have a spell that buffs my staff so it kinda maybe blocks hits and stuff. You know. Gameplay!Or maybe I'm doin it wrong. I wouldn't know.

5. Better port. Obviously. And this includes better PC controls like WHY DOES THE TARGETTING SWITCH FOR EACH PIXEL OF MOUSE MOVEMENT OH GOD WHY.

Jerry Pendleton:Option to turn off invasion. I hate them. I am not in the mood to PVP. I just want to play the single player aspect of the game, without risking a damn invasion. I know I can just stay hallow or play offline, but if I do, I end up missing out on summons that I need for a boss battle.

Just dont become human unless if you are going against a boss, its rather easy to avoid invasions.

OT: Dont make the running backwards animation the same speed as running forward, some gamers abuse that and make PVP tedious.

More weapons, areas, enemies and more attacks for each weapon (basicly more stuff).

fuzz:The only thing I'd improve is the Bed of Chaos. That fight is basically pot luck no matter how good you are. Even with a shield with great stability it'll just knock you into the ground.

Because the boss fight doesn't reset every time you die it sort of makes the fight a little trivial. The only thing that got me in that was I couldn't figure out how to get inside it. After a dozen attempts at leaping towards the root in the centre hole, and failing to land, I started circling around the thing, dying multiple times until I eventually threw my hands up and went to the wiki. Turns out, I was right at first, its just so fickle about the jump I started thinking I wasn't meant to go that way... a combination of obscurity and fickle jump timing made me 2nd guess my initially correct assumption.

So yeah, it could have been refined. The collapsing ground and the wide area attacks are fine, the actually structure of the boss fight is just weak though.

OP: The only thing I would ask for is less latency. PvP is a mixed bag at best, enemies back stabbing me while they are still towards my front gets tiresome quickly.

Also, maybe its just me, but all the Phantoms I faced in my first run were kitted out with gear I could only get well into the late game. Is there any kind of filter system in place to stop high level players with fat loot from invading players with starter sets? PvP just feels inaccessible at the start, almost off putting... I had a much better experience in Demons Souls. Its not awful, it just took FAR longer for me to get into and it was just frustrating every time I was invaded, because it was always so ludicrously balanced in the phantoms favour. There also seems to be fuck all blue phantoms at the early stages, making it ever harder to defend against early black phantom invasions.

It felt broken until I joined a covenant basically. Might just have been bad luck on my part.

Yea the jump down the middle of the bed of chaos is really finicky and usually kills me a few times.

When it comes to PvP the phantoms using high level gear at low levels are almost all doing so using the bottomless box glitch to copy items between saves.

Rylot:n the lore and it's all pretty interesting but I'd like some more of that in the game itself.

Edit: I didn't phrase that well. Obviously the lore is all in the game but I'd like to see it in the foreground as opposed to in the flavor text for an item I may not even find. Hiding little snippets of information about certain things for players to stumble upon is a cool little reward; Having to sift through the flavor text on a hundred different items to get any sort of cohesive idea of what's going on in the world just seems silly.

I would posit that piecing it together is sort of a metagame right in line with the self-discovery aspect that drives the rest of the game. Makes puzzling out the few mysteries I solved unassisted feel really good to figure out. Taking in the rest of the lore through other sources later on was utterly mind-blowing and made me appreciate the game even more. I think I appreciate its approach to this much more than, say, Amalur, that spilled out pages of narrative at every turn and...it was BORING to listen to. For minutes on end. Blah, blah, blah...same of TES. Reading books and gathering lore from the world itself is always more rewarding than having Generic Jarl C rattle on in a monotone for the next 15 minutes.

Love that air of mystery, even if I had to turn to the great lexicon of knowledge that is YouTube to expel much of the fog.

fuzz:The only thing I'd improve is the Bed of Chaos. That fight is basically pot luck no matter how good you are. Even with a shield with great stability it'll just knock you into the ground.

Because the boss fight doesn't reset every time you die it sort of makes the fight a little trivial. The only thing that got me in that was I couldn't figure out how to get inside it. After a dozen attempts at leaping towards the root in the centre hole, and failing to land, I started circling around the thing, dying multiple times until I eventually threw my hands up and went to the wiki. Turns out, I was right at first, its just so fickle about the jump I started thinking I wasn't meant to go that way... a combination of obscurity and fickle jump timing made me 2nd guess my initially correct assumption.

So yeah, it could have been refined. The collapsing ground and the wide area attacks are fine, the actually structure of the boss fight is just weak though.

OP: The only thing I would ask for is less latency. PvP is a mixed bag at best, enemies back stabbing me while they are still towards my front gets tiresome quickly.

Also, maybe its just me, but all the Phantoms I faced in my first run were kitted out with gear I could only get well into the late game. Is there any kind of filter system in place to stop high level players with fat loot from invading players with starter sets? PvP just feels inaccessible at the start, almost off putting... I had a much better experience in Demons Souls. Its not awful, it just took FAR longer for me to get into and it was just frustrating every time I was invaded, because it was always so ludicrously balanced in the phantoms favour. There also seems to be fuck all blue phantoms at the early stages, making it ever harder to defend against early black phantom invasions.

It felt broken until I joined a covenant basically. Might just have been bad luck on my part.

Yea the jump down the middle of the bed of chaos is really finicky and usually kills me a few times.

When it comes to PvP the phantoms using high level gear at low levels are almost all doing so using the bottomless box glitch to copy items between saves.

Okay then... fix that shit and my issue with PvP is halved. Or would have been... fucking hate exploiters.

I would posit that piecing it together is sort of a metagame right in line with the self-discovery aspect that drives the rest of the game. Makes puzzling out the few mysteries I solved unassisted feel really good to figure out. Taking in the rest of the lore through other sources later on was utterly mind-blowing and made me appreciate the game even more. I think I appreciate its approach to this much more than, say, Amalur, that spilled out pages of narrative at every turn and...it was BORING to listen to. For minutes on end. Blah, blah, blah...same of TES. Reading books and gathering lore from the world itself is always more rewarding than having Generic Jarl C rattle on in a monotone for the next 15 minutes.

Love that air of mystery, even if I had to turn to the great lexicon of knowledge that is YouTube to expel much of the fog.

Listen, I don't care how obnoxiously innaccessible a game is supposed to be, having to learn the story from external sources like Youtube is a failure in storytelling delivery.

Other than "offline pause", I disagree with all of those suggestions. Part of the unique Souls charm is From's staunch refusal to adopt so many of modern gaming's unnecessary conveniences. No save/load means all of your actions have consequences. No map means you have to really learn the layout of the game world (or make your own map!). Invasions mean you can't just hide behind blue phantoms all game long without assuming some risks.

I will say that the matchmaking system for invasions is completely backwards. There's no reason to match based on soul level when the vast majority of a character's power derives from his/her gear and spells. I feel like it wouldn't be too hard to toss together a system that matches based the total value (in souls) of equipped weaponry and spells. Assign balanced values to anything that isn't "bought". Then lock gear when you invade.

The way I look at it, you are your character, it just adds to the oppressive atmosphere of the game that everything is so wtf. It's horrible because you are totally lost and alone and you don't know what the hell is going on. The unknown is always more frightening.

For me it seemed way more satisfying piecing together what I could from crazy mutterings and items I found rather than get a massive exposition to the face.

Maybe that's just me though.

I would change the fact that the enemies always seem to hit first when you attack at the same moment. I guess it might be lag but its so constant it makes me think it's part of the design.

I have had things kill me when I've gone for the last hit on them and they have struck at the same time and got the hit over me.

krazykidd:... [a] walkthrough kills the experience , but that's just me . What did you learn online that wasn't explained and would have been in a tutorial?

Not a walkthrough, a guide. Something that explains the massive wall of stats they throw at you with no explanation. Something that also explains what most of the mechanics are. -Equipment load and at what percentages it affects movement speed.-That certain weapons are scaled on certain stats and what each of those is.-What bleed and curse do, and how to cure curse.-What intelligence and attunement are and how they work.-How invading and multiplayer works.-How to leave messages.-What the different weapon types do.-What sorcery, pyromancy, miracles are and how they differ.-What humanity is and how that whole system works with the multiplayer.

It's definitely a game that takes a hands on approach and lets the player decide how they want to play the game, it just would have been nice to have the asylum level explain a few more things.

And I get that. It's just frustrating to be in this world that is incredibly interesting and wonderfully terrible but then not have a clue who anyone is and why they're doing anything because I haven't collected the right loot. I'm not saying go for massive walls of exposition but I'd like a bit more.

-Equipment load and at what percentages it affects movement speed.-That certain weapons are scaled on certain stats and what each of those is.-What intelligence and attunement are and how they work.-What the different weapon types do.

These are all answered by hitting the select button or just by looking at the stats.

-What sorcery, pyromancy, miracles are and how they differ.-How to leave messages.-How invading and multiplayer works.

These are answered from the proper items plus some dialogue.

-What bleed and curse do, and how to cure curse.

Pretty obvious what they do after the first time you are cut/cursed. How to cure curse is told when you are cursed and you talk to the hint dispensing guy in Firelink. That's exactly what the guy is there for: to give you hints about where to go.

-What humanity is and how that whole system works with the multiplayer.

Item descriptions and choosing bonfire options. How it works with multiplayer would be nice info I guess.

I would posit that piecing it together is sort of a metagame right in line with the self-discovery aspect that drives the rest of the game. Makes puzzling out the few mysteries I solved unassisted feel really good to figure out. Taking in the rest of the lore through other sources later on was utterly mind-blowing and made me appreciate the game even more. I think I appreciate its approach to this much more than, say, Amalur, that spilled out pages of narrative at every turn

I agree with you there, I'm over 15 hours into Amular and I couldn't go into any detail about it's lore, especially the placenames and NPCs, most are just icons on the map to me.

I do like conversations with NPCs even if most of the extra dialog options is ZZZZZZZ.

OT: Someone mentioned the Vally of the Drakes, I think that whole area lets the game down, same goes for Ash Lake, both are too small and linear.